Motorola’s Iridium scheme would, if launched, involve 66 satellites in low (777 km) Earth orbit, with links between the satellites. The company estimates the cost of hand-held receivers, with built-in data communications adapters, at $2,500 when the system is due to be available in 1998, and cheaper later.
Predictor: Motorola
Prediction, in context:In his 1993 article on worldwide electronic communication, Mike Holderness writes about Motorola’s cost projections for receiving the Internet by satellite communications: ”Besides efforts such as Cable & Wireless’ programs to wire parts of the world, help may be at hand soon from satellite communications. Among several projects, Motorola’s Iridium scheme would, if launched, involve 66 satellites in low (777 km) Earth orbit, with links between the satellites. The company estimates the cost of hand-held receivers, with built-in data communications adapters, at $2,500 when the system is due to be available in 1998, and cheaper later. The cost of a 64k-bits-per-second (up to 1,000 words per second) connection from any point on Earth to any industrialised country’s phone system should be $3 a minute. Currently, a standard-rate call from the UK to Zimbabwe costs (UK Pound) 1.12 a minute, plus tax, with a data capacity of 20 words a second if you’re lucky.”
Date of prediction: March 2, 1993
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Pipeline/Switching/Hardware
Name of publication: New Scientist
Title, headline, chapter name: Down and Out on the Electronic Frontier
Quote Type: Paraphrase
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.poptel.org.uk/nuj/mike/articles/nsc-elec.htm
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney